Latest news with #foodexperience
Forbes
07-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Unlocking Restaurant Menus To Boost Your Culinary Returns
Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and William Holden in '"The Country Girl" () Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, dining out has gotten more expensive, and the ongoing uncertainty around tariffs is likely to drive up prices even further. As a result, consumers are being more careful about how they choose to spend their money. Even when visiting high-end establishments, diners still want to feel that the cost was worth the experience. But restaurant menus don't have to be a minefield if you know how to navigate them. Here are a few tips to help you maximize the value of your next meal. When Choosing Where To Dine, Understand Your 'Why' When it comes to ordering from restaurant menus, there is no single right answer. The outcome will be different for each eatery and each visit you make. Before choosing where to eat, think about what kind of experience you hope to have. Are you looking to grab a quick bite? Do you want to visit the new 'it' place where the scene matters more than the food? Are you craving a particular cuisine? Celebrating a special occasion? If your main concern is efficiency, it makes no sense to opt for the place with the multi-course tasting menu featuring a soufflé that takes 20 extra minutes to prepare, but you might select that same eatery if you're out for the night with a group of friends. Your decisions should be driven by your needs and desires on that particular day, so it helps to be clear with yourself about what those are up front. Digital Snooping Will Only Get You So Far With Google, Yelp and other online tools, it's easy to crowdsource your menu choices, but it's important to remember that you have no idea who actually wrote those reviews. How often do those folks eat out? What's their spice tolerance? Are their dining choices tamer than yours? Do they have a personal axe to grind with the owner? Are they benefiting financially from the restaurant's success? While I do read user reviews and check out online ratings, I tend to take them all with a grain of salt, unless a critique is glaringly and consistently horrifying across a large number of reviews. Write-ups by food critics are a different story—not because I think their opinions are necessarily more valuable, but because I can get a better sense of their overall biases by reading their other reviews. If I know that Jane Doe routinely loves dishes that require tweezers to plate, or entrees that are so spicy they'll blow a hole through the roof of your mouth, that information gives me a way to assess her opinions and temper them with my own. For this reason, it can be helpful to identify a few food critics whose tastes tend to align with yours. After you get home from an amazing meal, Google the name of the restaurant you just visited along with the word 'reviews.' See which opinions line up with your feelings about the experience you just had. If you agree with a critic across several reviews, that person's assessments might carry more weight for you in the future. Choose Dishes You Typically Avoid Making At Home When you're scanning restaurant menus, look for ingredients or preparations that you aren't likely to tackle in your own kitchen. For example, I love Indian food, but I rarely prepare elaborate Indian recipes at home. The dishes I make commonly reflect the Mediterranean food I grew up cooking and eating with my family, and my larder is stocked with those ingredients. These familiar flavor combinations and techniques are my shorthand, especially on a busy weeknight. While spices don't exactly go bad, there is a notable difference between a dish that's been made with freshly ground spices and those that are six months old. Although I love Indian food, I don't restock the necessary seasonings often enough to keep them at peak freshness, so rather than make a subpar version of chana masala, I am much more likely to choose it at a restaurant instead. Assess The Labor Behind A Dish Naturally, your bill includes the cost of ingredients and front-of-house service, but you're also paying for the kitchen labor, so it makes sense to factor in the complexity of a dish when perusing a restaurant menu. I love a great steak, but it's not much of a challenge for me to purchase a nice ribeye and sear it in a cast-iron skillet at home. I don't need to pay a chef to do that for me. On the other hand, I am not likely to make beef Wellington from scratch, or attempt a 35-ingredient Oaxacan mole, or spend days planning and executing a cassoulet recipe. If you are willing to do all of these things, I applaud your dedication, but I know myself well enough to be honest about my attention span and energy levels these days. As you peruse a restaurant's menu, think about how challenging and time-consuming the dishes would be for you to prepare at home. Would it require a spreadsheet and the purchase of specialty ingredients, some of which may need to be acquired by mail order? In that case, you may prefer to let the chef take the wheel. Decoding The Specials On Restaurant Menus The Welton Street Cafe in Denver, Colorado (Photo by Joe Amon/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post) You've done your research, you've settled on what type of experience you hope to have and you've decided on your order, but when your server arrives, they throw your plan into disarray with six simple words: 'We have a few specials tonight.' Boom. Now what? Beyond your preferences, the answer depends on the context. Are you in a fine-dining establishment where the menu changes frequently, or are you sitting at the counter of a greasy spoon? If the latter, it doesn't mean the special isn't worthy of the name—a good cook is a good cook, and my mother would crush the competition on Chopped, even with the humblest of ingredients—but that 'special' could also be a vehicle for using up leftovers or food that's nearing its expiration date. Does the central ingredient appear in several other places on the menu? If so, what makes this particular dish special? (Don't be afraid to ask your server.) If, however, the special is built around a unique ingredient that's only available for a short period, I will always give it serious consideration. I rarely turn down a special that features soft-shell crabs because their season is so ephemeral (and because I love them). And if your server fails to mention the price tag for a special, don't be afraid to ask. Some ingredients, like real truffles, can double the cost of a dish, and a reputable restaurant will tell you the price upfront rather than give you a coronary when the bill arrives. You Shouldn't Need Liquid Courage To Ask About Drinks A tray of martini glasses (Photo by Mark Peterson/Corbis) Your server is likely to take your beverage order before you've decided what to eat. If you're keen to pair your drinks with your food, however, it's fine to hold off on ordering a drink until you've figured out your meal choices. Should you go for one of the restaurant's creative cocktails or stick with a classic? When to order wine? What about the mocktails? The answer is 'it depends.' When faced with a unique cocktail, we all have a tendency to imbue it with the qualities we wish it had, based on menu verbiage. But proportions are everything, so if you hate sweet cocktails, don't assume that the drink won't be cloying just because it contains some yuzu juice. Not all ingredients get listed on the menu, and a heavy pour of simple syrup could easily tip the scales into diabetic shock. Talk to the waitstaff or bartender. They're there to help you make these choices—they want you to be happy so that you'll return—so simplify their job by sharing your preferences. Similarly, if you're not a wine expert, ask to speak to the sommelier or wine director. Tell them approximately how much you want to spend, what you're planning to eat, and what flavor profiles you typically enjoy. In some restaurants and bars, a classic cocktail may be a safer bet because the liquor elements are standardized. While a bartender's skill matters, you're less likely to end up with a drink you hate if most of the components are shelf-stable spirits. Ask what kind of mixers they use—freshly squeezed juices, high-end tonics, or generic fizz from the bar's soda gun?—and request your favorite brand of liquor (but don't assume the price will remain the same if you do, so be sure to ask). As growing numbers of customers seek out non-alcoholic options, more restaurants are offering creative mocktails, but the price tags for some of these are considerably higher than what you'd expect for a beverage that has no booze. When restaurant menus list their cocktails at $20 and their mocktails at $18, I'd just as soon order a simple cranberry and seltzer instead on a night that I'm abstaining from alcohol. Leave Room For Cravings Even if you patronize the same restaurant repeatedly, there are variables you cannot control. What kind of mood is the chef in today? Is there a crisis in the kitchen that will affect the quality of your dinner? Is the sea bass that was delivered this morning as pristine as what you had the last time you ordered the dish? For better and worse, life is unpredictable. (The ONLY true constant is that you should tip your servers well; they are not responsible for the prices, and they rely on your tips for their income.) Similarly, your personal preferences may change from meal to meal, regardless of restaurant menus. Some evenings, I order linguine with white clam sauce even though I could easily make that dish at home—because it's what I am craving, or because I love a particular restaurant's version. If a dish is the specialty of the house, that may supersede the fact that it's not labor intensive. Flexibility is key. Let your appetite and budget guide you, but above all, enjoy!
CTV News
02-07-2025
- Business
- CTV News
Halifax waterfront kiosk serves up African Nova Scotian food and facts
A brand-new food spot on the Halifax Waterfront gives customers a taste of African Nova Scotian culture, with a side of its history. Dean Lucas, the owner of Freedom, says the concept of his business started after he noticed African Nova Scotian culture wasn't being represented through the waterfront's current cuisine options. He also observed that some residents and tourists had a lack of knowledge about its history. 'I sort of started to talk with them to find out if they knew anything about African Nova Scotian history and like where we come from and the importance of that point I thought, I need to kind of do something, maybe create a business,' says Lucas. Since his kiosk debuted on Canada Day, Lucas says its garnered positive feedback. 'It's been awesome. People that come in, they love the food. They love the whole concept. I had a lady come from South Africa the other day, and she said her friend told her to stop in here,' he says. The business hopes their dusted lemon pepper wings and East Coast deep fried pepperoni, will tempt nostalgic taste buds and promote African Nova Scotian products. 'You're teaching people about your culture, your history and just giving them a good time…you're not selling food- you're selling the experience and the history. It's all genuine pieces from African Nova Scotian artists,' says employee, Braedyn Provo. Lucas says the name of the business was inspired by both his family, and his high hopes for the community. 'I'd love to see our communities be free, where they can build their own economies and have gas stations, stores, restaurants, have tours coming through Kevin's bus, so they don't need to rely anymore,' he says. The business will continue serving up food and facts until October. Freedom Freedom, African Nova Scotian cuisine on the Halifax waterfront. (CTV Atlantic/ Vanessa Wright) For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
Forbes
24-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
How One Buzzy New Los Angeles Restaurant Solved The $25 Burger Problem
After taking over the space (and name) of a beloved corner store in Los Angeles, Beethoven Market aims to reinvent the neighborhood restaurant experience. The last time I was in Beethoven Market, I bought a quart of milk, a pack of mints and a lottery ticket. The scratch-off was a bust but the real payoff finally came last night when I dined at the stunning new restaurant now occupying the space where Slim Jims and Little Debbies once passed for starters. Two years ago, my neighbors near the beach in Los Angeles quietly felt the loss when the family-run convenience store—built in 1949—closed its doors for good. Then came the inevitable laundry list of 'uh-ohs' when restaurateur Jeremy Adler took over the Mar Vista property and turned the old Beethoven Market into a glossy, indoor-outdoor Cal-Italian hot spot: The noise! The parking! The safety of our kids! Nothing on the menu at Beethoven Market is over $35 and most dishes land comfortably under $30. But something interesting happened on the way to wood-fired pork collar and thyme: A true neighborhood void got filled. Not because Mar Vista desperately needed another open-beamed spot for tuna carpaccio and natural orange wine—it didn't. But Adler and his team figured out something most restaurants don't, which is how to belong. The reborn, unrecognizable, completely delicious Beethoven Market isn't trying to gouge or dazzle or food-snob its way to success. It just wants you to come back, and feel good and then come back again. Let's talk prices. Lately, you need to say a prayer (or pop a gummy) before even glancing at a menu. 'The $25 burger problem' has spiraled into $28 Caesar salads, $11 espresso shots, and an $18 slice of olive oil cake you won't even like that much. Plus, automatic 20 percent gratuities, employee healthcare surcharges and whatever you're Venmo-ing your 14-year-old babysitter/TikTok consultant. It's a lot. Beethoven Market has a three-week wait for reservations but the bar has 24 spots for walk-ins. Beethoven Market doesn't have a dish over $35, and most land comfortably below $30. That pork collar is $29. Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe is $15. The Meyer lemon and clam pizza is $23, and that's the most expensive one. A generous and memorable side of roasted artichoke hearts runs $13, and cocktails cap out at $15. No, they're not giving food away but it's a refreshing difference from another newish place five minutes down Venice Boulevard charging $45 for gnocchi with black truffles and $55 for short ribs, and pretending it's doing you a favor (And I won't even mention the $60 half duck confit at Gjelina). Adler is intentional about all this. He was roving around the restaurant last night and told me he designed Beethoven Market so neighbors can linger like it's an extension of their own living room. He instructed his staff never to upsell or sneer if a guest — he hates the word 'customer' — just wants a beer and a $12 plate of crispy rice balls. He sees Beethoven Market as a 'third place'—not home, not work— where the community comes together. It's why he installed VIB Parking for strollers (the b is for babies) near the entrance on Palms Boulevard. It explains the happy hour pricing that keeps drinks at $10 and appetizers in the Trader Joe's range. One other move Adler made gives me hope. When the old market and liquor store went away, regulars worried about what would happen to the Beethoven Market staff, including Bernardo Mendoza, who was the face behind the counter seven days a week for 30 years. Mendoza didn't have restaurant experience but Adler asked him to join the restaurant team, and he's now working as a back server and training to be a waiter. He recently told LA Weekly, 'This is where I belong.' Maybe this will all change. It's already nearly impossible to score a reservation at Beethoven Market without a three-week wait. But there are options for walk-ins at the 24-seat bar, and Adler, who works full time for Resy, says he's thinking about making some adjustments—perhaps allowing priority booking for locals. But that's still to come. The point is, sometimes a place can change without losing its sense of place. Restaurants don't always need to chase hype to fill seats. Even in 2025, menus don't have to bankrupt you to make you feel taken care of. And if you treat neighbors like people, they'll tend to stick around. Beethoven Market is located at 12904 Palms Boulevard. The Los Angeles restaurant is open Sunday through Wednesday, from 5 pm to 9 pm, and Thursday through Saturday from 5 pm to 10 pm. Happy hour is daily from 4 pm to 5 pm.
